


The Ringer

by beethechange



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series), Watcher Entertainment
Genre: Choking, Comeplay, Dirty Talk, Dom/sub vibes, F/M, Light Cuckold Stuff, Multi, Overstimulation, Sexy Shame, Spanking, big dick problems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 19:16:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23938843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beethechange/pseuds/beethechange
Summary: Then Ryan leans in conspiratorially, all his attention trained on Sara. “What, is the gentle giant not enough for you?”She inhales shakily, caught off guard by the question, and it makes him grin. Ryan’s smile has always been sunshine, pure sunshine, but now it’s the kind that you bask in and find out later it’s given you solar keratosis.“It’s not about enough,” she says. “It’s about different.”“You just need someone to take care of you, huh?” Ryan asks. He reaches out to tug on one of her curls, to push it behind her ear, and it makes Shane want to sit on his own hands. “Big guy’s not pulling his weight, so you need a ringer to come in and do the job right?”
Relationships: Ryan Bergara/Sara Rubin, Ryan Bergara/Shane Madej/Sara Rubin
Comments: 81
Kudos: 318
Collections: Buzzfeed Poly April, Shyanara Fest 2020





	The Ringer

**Author's Note:**

> Now if you all look to your left you will find some pure filth sunbathing in its natural habitat. Please keep your hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times. No flash photography, please, as that gets the filth all riled up and it may charge. 
> 
> This isn’t _for_ for Fie, but it’s basically for Fie. Thanks for organizing this Shyanara party, my dear. We who are about to spend all night reading fic salute you (me, it’s me). Thank you also to Catt for the beta!

*

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Sara says delicately, after. “But you’re not the _best_ at that.”

“Is there a right way to take it?” Shane rolls over on his side to face her, wincing as his sweaty back peels away from the equally sweaty sheets. He wonders if it’s normal to sweat that much. Their usual sex life is not quite so damp.

He had not hid his nerves well.

Sara sighs. “You know that’s not what I mean. I just think maybe this isn’t in your wheelhouse. You’re so—you’re too sweet. Too careful.”

“I’m as big as two of you,” Shane points out. “If I’m not careful I’ll accidentally kill you, which I think we can agree is a tough look for a guy who hosts a true crime show.”

That makes Sara laugh, which was his primary goal, but it doesn’t make her drop it, which was his secondary one.

“Yeah,” she says, still smiling, “but it doesn’t scratch this particular itch, is all.”

He realizes, somewhat reluctantly, that she must _care_ about this to pursue it so doggedly. It must matter to her; must feel like something she’s missing. He doesn’t want her to feel that way, and he makes himself focus up. He wants her to have everything she wants.

“Do you have some notes for me?”

Sara pauses, thinking. “The thing where you called me a filthy little slut, that was good. It was just the part after that ruined the illusion it a little bit.”

“Oh, so the part where I said, ‘sorry, sorry, oh my god, sorry, I respect you’ over and over wasn’t really working for you?”

“Correct,” Sara affirms. “And I liked the hair pulling a lot, but again—”

“Too much apologizing?”

“I mean, feel free to tell me I have the abundant curls of a Grecian goddess any _other_ time, but.”

“Right. Okay. Noted.”

“And the—like. The spanking was a little…lackluster.”

“I can’t do it,” Shane says, all in a defeated rush. “I can’t hurt you, okay? I know you want me to. But I _can’t_, I just, it makes me feel awful even though I know you want it.”

“I know you can’t,” Sara says gently, and her beautiful green eyes are kind. “That’s what I’m trying to say.”

He sees what she’s getting at. It wouldn’t be the first time. They’ve each brought other people into their bed before, for one reason or another. Their relationship exists somewhere in the undefined space of _monogamous-plus_, with occasional threesomes or flings to scratch a particular itch. Sara dated a woman on the side for a few months, and that worked out great for everybody even though it hadn’t lasted.

But this feels—different. Shane wouldn’t trust a stranger with her, not for this. Some guy they found a bar or online, some Joe Schmo with his hand around her neck, his handprint red on her cheek? Unthinkable.

“I’m just saying we should think about it,” she says, quiet but persistent. “See if we can find someone who’s a good fit.”

“We can think about it,” Shane agrees. He wishes he could do this for her, he really does, but when push comes to shove he just cannot make himself get there. Even when he tells himself it’s just like acting, really, just playing a role, the right words don’t come to him.

Shane’s so used to deliberately making his body into something gentle, something nonthreatening. When you’re six foot four you have to work at it, and work at it he has. He’s so accustomed to throwing every ounce of his energy into making his body language something safe around women that even now, in the privacy of his own bedroom with this woman who loves and trusts him, he doesn’t know how to make it behave differently.

They just need to find someone who hasn’t worked quite so hard at it, is all.

*

Of course the answer is right in front of their faces.

They take Ryan out for lunch, because that is a perfectly normal and reasonable way to request that a person demolish your girlfriend.

Actually Shane lets Sara do the requesting, because she’s the one who knows what she wants and how to ask for it. If Shane knew they wouldn’t be here in the first place, so he mostly sits there with his mouth shut and watches the flurry of emotions change Ryan’s features: surprise, discomfort, curiosity, interest.

It definitely lands on delight, in the end. Ryan puts his unfinished sandwich down and barks out a laugh, one sharp _ha!_ He sits back in his chair, arms crossed, and surveys them both for what feels to Shane like a long time.

Then he leans in conspiratorially, all his attention trained on Sara. “What, is the gentle giant not enough for you?”

His eyes flick over to Shane for a second, and then back to her. She inhales shakily, caught off guard by the question, and it makes him grin. Ryan’s smile has always been sunshine, pure sunshine, but now it’s the kind that you bask in and find out later it’s given you solar keratosis.

“It’s not about enough,” she says. “It’s about different.”

“You just need someone to take care of you, huh?” Ryan asks. He reaches out to tug on one of her curls, to push it behind her ear, and it makes Shane want to sit on his own hands. “Big guy’s not pulling his weight, so you need a ringer to come in and do the job right?”

“Yeah,” she says, breathless. Shane’s about to cut in, halfway to offended, when he realizes—it’s already _started_. She’s auditioning him, or maybe it’s the other way around. He keeps quiet and lets them feel it out.

They must come to some sort of agreement, because Ryan sits back and picks up his sandwich again. He takes a bite, and they both wait while he chews it. He takes a second bite and Shane realizes he’s making them wait on purpose, and that’s part of it too.

“So—” Shane starts, when he’s finally unable to sit with the silence any longer.

“How am I supposed to feel, that you were scouring your minds for someone to be an asshole in the bedroom and you landed on me?” Ryan asks. “What, am I supposed to be flattered?”

It’s not like that, not exactly. Sara had said she could practically smell it off him: the ability to figure out what people want from him, what they _need_, and become it. It’s not about inherent meanness, or bossiness, or about toxic masculinity or porn damage or any of the usual talking points. It’s his desire to be liked; his desire to please. The careful, keen-eyed attention he pays to everyone around him.

(“There’s no way,” Sara had said. “There’s _no way_ a guy who likes to make people laugh that much doesn’t love to make them come.”)

“Sara’s got good instincts for this,” is what Shane goes with.

Ryan snorts. “So how’d she end up with you, then?”

Shane knows when he’s being wound up, and he could refuse to play along. Today, though, he’s inclined to give Ryan what he wants, so Ryan will give Sara what she wants in return. He lets his irritation show.

“Some things are more important than—look, do you want to or not?”

“Shane,” Sara starts, but she stops talking when Ryan holds up his hand.

“Of course I want to,” Ryan says easily. “You’re crazy if you think I haven’t thought about it. Look at her. She’s rarin’ to go right now.” 

Sara squirms in her seat. Her cheeks and the bridge of her nose are flushed, and Shane realizes Ryan’s absolutely right. This is working for her. _Really_ working for her.

“I want to be there,” Shane says, because that’s the other part of this they haven’t covered yet, the part that might make Ryan run for the hills, and nobody would blame him. “I want to watch. Or, well, I need to, or I’ll…I’ll worry.”

“What’s that song you probably love, that bullshit hipster one from two thousand whatever?” Ryan asks Sara, ignoring him. “I won’t teach your boyfriend how to dance with you.”

“It’s not about teaching anybody anything,” Shane says. He can’t help but feel like Ryan’s trying the same thing he just tried on Sara, talking over and around him like he isn’t here. Deliberately unsettling each of them in turn.

“Do you want to be there but have us pretend you’re not there, or do you want to _be there_?” Ryan asks, and all Shane can do is stare at him blankly. Ryan taps the table, like he thinks Shane isn’t paying attention. Shane is paying _so much_ attention. “I’m asking if it’s a thing for you, buddy.”

“A thing?”

Ryan rolls his eyes. Whatever character he was putting on, the guy _almost_ himself but smoother and more confident, he lets it drops a little. He lowers his voice, too, conscious that they are in public.

“You gonna make me say this shit, man? Are you a _part of it_? You want me to get inside her and tell you I’m giving her what she needs, because you can’t? Or do you really just want to play hall monitor? I can work with either, but I do need to know.” 

“Jesus, Ryan,” Shane says, a little flustered in spite of himself, but he supposes the only way to meet this thing is head-long and with honesty. “I don’t know. It’s never been a thing for me before.”

And he’s not saying it isn’t working for him now, at least a little bit, or that it couldn’t _become_ a thing—just that he’s never really put it to the test. It hadn’t even occurred to him that Ryan might think that, that he might offer, although Shane sees now why the set-up of their meeting might suggest it.

“It, uh, might be a little bit of a thing for me,” Sara confesses.

She’s bright pink now. She’s going to be _on_ Shane as soon as they’re alone, and it might not be quite what she’s hankering for but it’ll still be pretty damn great. Shane’s half-hard in his pants with the anticipation, and when he puts his hand on her thigh under the table she shifts again.

“There’s a reason I didn’t bother to ask you, princess,” Ryan says, and he winks at her. Shane feels a little indignant, because that’s _his_ move, and also because the idea of anyone calling Sara ‘princess’ and not getting immediately disemboweled feels wrong to him. “Everybody in this restaurant can tell it’s a thing for you.”

Shane goes for a nice long stroll after that, to walk off his semi and let them to talk it out. There are things he’s sure Sara will find easier to ask for without him there hovering, and he wants her to get what she wants. He doesn’t want to run the risk of there being any misunderstandings because his presence made anybody uncomfortable.

As for Ryan, Shane had known all along he would say yes.

Ryan simply doesn’t know when to stop. He doesn’t know how to say no to things that feel good, that make him happy. Shane’s seen him eat enough Taco Bell for about three people, well past the point of discomfort; has seen him smoke enough pot to get an elephant high; has seen him drunk out of his gourd on a random Tuesday night for no other reason than because it was there and he wanted it. He’s just not a man who naturally self-moderates, even when there will be consequences.

Shane had a hunch that sex would be the same way, and he’d played that hunch, and he’d been right.

And there’s also this: Shane’s not foolish enough to think it’s about him, exactly. He knows he’s background noise here. But he does think that the fact that he’s the one asking, that Sara is his girlfriend, might sweeten the pot in some vague and indefinable way.

Ryan likes to be liked, and he likes to be needed. He likes to tease; he likes to compete, and win. He likes it when he’s got Shane’s attention, and will sometimes go well out of his way to get it. And what is this, if not all those things?

*

On the appointed day, a month later—to give them all plenty of time to back out, though none of them do—Shane can’t keep his hands off Sara.

He doesn’t know if this is the long-awaited jealousy rearing its head at last or what. Maybe he’s more excited about this than he realized, now that it’s finally happening for real and not only in hypotheticals and their imaginations.

“Cut it out,” she giggles as he wraps himself around her while she’s at the kitchen counter making dinner. He wiggles his hand into her shorts, into her underwear, finding her already wet. Unless a nice crusty bread really gets her going, she’s feeling the anticipation too.

“Excited, are we?” he asks. Perversely he feels a little jolt of that competitive spirit; it makes him use his legs to push hers further apart, dip one fingertip inside her. “Wanna get a head start?”

“You’re a real piece of work,” she says, but she sighs and leans back against him.

“Just doing a favor for a friend. Imagine how grateful he’ll be to find I’ve primed the pump, so to speak.”

“_Shane_,” she sighs. “Come on.”

He can’t tell if she means _come on, stop_ or _come on and do it already_, and he chooses to believe it’s the latter. He gently takes the knife out of her hand—it’s just a bread knife, but still—and finds her clit again, giving her slow and steady pressure until she’s coming under his hand and pressing back against him.

He won’t try to fuck her, not now; something tells him Ryan wouldn’t find it sporting. Still, he’s got no qualms about reminding her how good he is at this part.

*

Ryan arrives at 8:57 pm. Shane thinks it’s the first time in recent memory he’s seen Ryan arrive early for anything.

“Wow, if there was pussy in it for you the Watcher Weeklies would be going up on time every single week,” Shane jokes, standing aside to let Ryan in.

He’s just in those ripped jeans that border on obscene and a t-shirt, nothing special, although a keen eye would spot he’s freshly showered, his hair still a little damp where it’s fighting whatever he attempted to do in the way of styling it.

“Har har,” Ryan says, “you’re a riot, you know that? Where’s Sara?”

“Bathroom. Attending to lady business,” Shane says, twirling his hand in a vague attempt to encapsulate the mysterious web of rituals women get up to for minutes and hours in bathrooms. “Pretty sure she shaved her legs for you and everything, so, you know. Just be appreciative.”

“I’m always appreciative.”

“See that you are.”

They stand there for a minute, waiting wordlessly. It’s awkward between them for perhaps the first time since they all started planning this; awkward specifically because there is nothing _left_ to plan, nothing left to arrange. Ryan wipes his hands on his jeans, shifting from foot to foot.

Shane’s relieved that Ryan’s nervous. He’s seemed so not-nervous until now that Shane thought it was starting to seem suspiciously out-of-character. Ryan can bluff his way through a lot, but this is, after all, a _lot_ of a lot.

“I’m sorry this is so weird,” Ryan apologizes.

“It’s okay. You’ll be great,” Shane says, finding himself in the bizarre position of having to give a pep talk to the guy who’s about to fuck his girlfriend. “You’ll be gangbusters. She’s been going up the walls all day.”

“Yeah?” Ryan asks, and he goes charmingly pink and pleased at this information. Shane’s sure once Sara joins them the bashfulness will disappear, but he’s enjoying it. It reminds him that the Ryan he knows and the one who’s been called up to bat tonight are in fact the same guy, a guy he happens to like and trust a lot.

Sara comes out of the bathroom then, and Ryan’s face lights up.

She’s not conspicuously dolled up, but Shane can tell she’s gone to the effort: light makeup, a dress he’s never seen before, lower-cut than she usually wears. Perhaps she assumes Ryan goes for something a little more obviously sexy, which would have been Shane’s bet as well.

“Hey, this is pretty,” Ryan compliments her by way of a greeting, playing with the thin straps of her dress. “Take it off.”

“Nice to see you too, Ryan.”

She’s smiling at his forwardness, but he’s not kidding after all. The straps are a little loose around her shoulders, and he’s got plenty of room to drag them down, to peel the top of the dress down with them.

She’s not wearing a bra, as she often doesn’t, and Ryan grins when the peak of a nipple appears. He moves fast, this guy.

“This is prettier,” he tells her, and he reaches down to pinch her nipple hard enough that she makes a little startled noise. His other hand winds up her chest to rest loosely at her neck, no pressure to speak of, just a reminder that he can. His hand isn’t as big as Shane’s, but she is so tiny-boned that it looks enormous. 

Shane’s vision tunnels to include _only_ the place where his best friend’s hand is wrapped around the neck of the love of his life.

“You’re lovely,” Ryan says to Sara, his thumb petting a line down the center of her throat as he says it. “I’m so glad someone remembered to teach your boyfriend that sharing is caring.” 

“It’s not entirely clear to me which of us he’s sharing,” Sara says, raising her eyebrow, and her shoulders jolt as Ryan presses his thumb in right at the base of her windpipe, just for a second. She’d been testing him, Shane thinks, to see what kind of reaction she’d get for talking back.

Now she knows.

Ryan doesn’t take the bait, though—and it _had_ been bait. He just leans in to kiss her, long and slow and sloppy, a little bite at her lip at the end for good measure. When he pulls away, Shane’s tunnel vision helpfully widens just enough to allow him to fixate on the string of saliva that stretches between their mouths.

“Go get comfortable on the bed, okay, Sar? We’ll be in too, in a sec.” Ryan’s hand leaves her throat at last to give her a firm pat on the ass, _go on, then_.

“What, and leave the menfolk to haggle over how many goats I’m worth?” she jokes, but her eyes flick to Shane, uncertain.

“Don’t worry about it,” Ryan tells her.

Shane doesn’t know what to say to her. This is all sort of above his paygrade, which is why Ryan’s here at all. He only knows that if it were anyone else but Ryan holding her like that, he’d be out of his mind already. As it is he’s—excited, maybe. And terrified.

So instead of saying anything he gives her a thumbs up, which is embarrassing, and he hears Ryan say “Jesus.”

Sara doesn’t bother to pull her dress up, and they both watch her bare back as she goes, the delicateness of her shoulder blades moving as she opens the door at the end of the hall.

“What did you want to talk about?” Shane asks.

“Oh. Nothing, actually. It’s just a…you know. A way to keep her off-balance.”

“A mind game.”

Ryan shrugs. “Yeah, sort of. She’s gonna get herself all worked up wondering what we’re talking about out here, and it’ll make her want to impress me. I mean, it’s Sara, so she knows exactly what I’m doing, and if it works it’ll be because she let it work. But that’s the idea.”

“Oh,” Shane says. That’s all he’s got: _oh_. It would never have occurred to him to try such a thing, or that Sara might like it if he did. So much of their relationship is built around their shared desire to be a Very Modern Couple, to break down stereotypes and to defy expectations. It had never occurred to him that might be exhausting for her in its own way; that she might find it relaxing to try something else for a night.

Ryan looks at him, eyes narrowed. “You can stop this any time you want, you know. I saw how you stopped breathing when I touched her neck. There’s gonna be more of that, so if it’s too much you’ve got to say something. Or get up and leave, if you’d rather. You can always just say stop.”

“I won’t want you to stop,” Shane says, and that’s the honest truth. He trusts Ryan. He trusts Sara to use whatever safe word they cooked up together, if she needs to. Tonight’s not about him.

“Or if I say something to you that you don’t like, or you’d rather I didn’t acknowledge you at all—”

“Ryan. It’s fine. As long as you give her what she needs, I’m happy as a fuckin’ clam.” 

“I can do that.” Ryan’s hand twitches in his pocket. “I have this really weird urge to shake your hand right now, but I don’t think that’s—right.”

“Too much like the goat thing,” Shane agrees.

*

When they get in the bedroom, Sara’s arranged herself rather attractively on the bed. She’s out of the dress, and all she’s got on now is a pair of white lace panties Shane’s certain he’s never seen before.

There’s something arresting about the idea of her shopping for special panties for _Ryan_.

He stops stock still in the doorway, and Ryan crashes into him from behind. He grabs onto Shane’s shoulders to stop himself from falling over.

It takes a moment, but a firm squeeze to Shane’s bicep reminds him what they agreed upon, and he heads over to the chair in the corner. It lives in their office usually, but it’s been put here special for the view it affords, and for its distance from the bed—far enough away that he can fade into the background if he chooses, but close enough that he doesn’t have to.

Ryan takes his time. He takes his shoes off, and his socks. He strips his t-shirt off, too. He’s definitely been stepping up the working out again lately, and Shane wonders if it was for this.

“I want you on your hands and knees at the edge of the bed,” Ryan tells Sara, and she scurries to comply. “No, down on your elbows. Come on, you know what I want to see.”

He’s got his belt undone, but he abandons his own undressing to stand behind Sara, to run his hands up her sides and then back down, molding her back into a brutal arch. He peels her panties off, nudging her legs together so he can pull them all the way down and toss them aside.

Then Ryan puts his hands on her thighs and pulls them apart again. Even from his vantage point across the room, Shane can see how wet she is, pink and shiny and open for Ryan already and he hasn’t even touched her. All it took was a thumb at the base of her windpipe and a healthy dose of anticipation.

“Look at you,” Ryan says admiringly, rubbing little circles into her inner thighs with his thumbs. “You always this easy?” 

From behind he presses two fingers inside her without any warning. She’s wet enough to handle it, but she still gives a rumble of surprise.

“No,” she says.

“Special just for me? Or did Shane already fuck you today?”

She doesn’t answer, and he gives her a little slap on the ass with his other hand. With the fingers still inside her, he rubs up and in, making her squeak.

“No,” she says. She’s breathing heavy now, and her back is arching, and Shane knows they have great sex—he _knows_ it—but he hasn’t seen her like this so quickly in a long time.

“You can be honest with me, I won’t mind,” Ryan says. “Is it possible you couldn’t wait for me? That you just had to get that big dick in you? Hey, I get it. A girl’s got needs.”

A shiver of pleasure twists its way up Shane’s own spine where he sits. He’s tried this kind of dirty talk before, but it always comes out sounding wrong when he says it, unconvincing and crude. Obviously it’s crude now, too, but Ryan runs his mouth as easy as breathing.

“No, his f—” Sara starts, shuddering when Ryan smacks her on the ass again with the flat of his hand. “His fingers, only.”

“Not like those are small,” Ryan says. “No wonder you’re taking mine so well.” He pulls out of her to rub his wet pointer finger against her asshole. Shane’s not expecting it, and he leans forward in his chair to see better without meaning to. “What about here?”

“Not—fingers, sometimes. Not today.”

“_Sometimes_,” Ryan says, like he’s marveling at it. Shane can’t tell if he’s actually surprised or if he’s just playacting. He thinks there’s some chance Ryan and Sara rehearsed almost every minute of this, planned it all meticulously to be just what she wants. “That must take you all night, you’re so tight. Worth the trouble, huh?”

“Yeah,” Sara whimpers. “I like it.”

“Next time,” Ryan says to her, taking his finger away. “Or, hey. Maybe if your boyfriend ever gets his shit together you can have us both at once.”

Shane can’t figure out what the strange roaring noise is, or why no one else seems to be reacting to it. Then he realizes it’s just his own blood rushing in his ears. It sounds _so loud_, like a freight train headed this way, and there’s him tied to the tracks.

He had expected to be able to deal with this; he had _not_ been expecting to like it so much. But here he is, fully hard in his pants, barely resisting the urge to press down with the heel of his hand through his chinos.

“Ryan,” Sara says, her voice shaky.

He dips down to bite at her hip and reaches around her body to touch her clit. The second he makes contact Sara arches back toward him, offering herself up entirely. Her arms are flung out in front of her, hands clutching at the duvet.

He rubs her relentlessly with his thumb, ignoring the desperate shifting of her hips. When she cries out—it must be almost too much all at once, it’s certainly a lot rougher than Shane ever is with her, rougher than she touches herself—he merely doubles down.

“I won’t stop until you come,” he warns her. As if on cue her thighs start shaking uncontrollably as she comes about as hard as Shane’s ever seen, so hard she goes tipping forward onto the bed. 

“Shit,” she whispers. Her legs are still shaking as Ryan pulls his hand out from between her body and the bed, giving her a pat on the ass.

“Good girl,” he says, and Shane watches a shiver pass all the way from her shoulders down to the curl of her toes. “Does Shane make you come that good?”

“Sometimes,” she says when she’s got her voice back. She looks back over her shoulder at Ryan, giving him a little jut of her chin. Not giving him the satisfaction. Shane feels a surge of pride at her belligerence, ‘_atta girl_.

“More than once?”

“Sometimes.”

“How many times, usually?”

She takes a moment to think. Her eyes find Shane in the corner, just for a second. Ryan must mistake it for hesitance, or he’s just looking for an excuse, because he smacks her on her ass twice in a row, hard and sharp. A red mark appears on the pale, delicate skin there.

Sara shrieks; Shane himself feels a sting. When he looks down at the palm of his hand, there are little half-moon marks where his fingernails dug in.

“Two or three,” Sara says, breathing heavy. She scoots her body back up, ready for whatever he wants to give her, and when she speaks again there’s a little smile hiding in it. “Five times, once.”

Shane remembers that night. It had been a good night. They’d been out at some party, they’d each had a few drinks but not too many. Sara had been in a mood all day, pressing against him and flirting like mad. He’d carried her into the bedroom the second they made it through the door of their apartment, and gotten her off with his mouth until she was begging him, until she was pushing him away.

“Tell me about it,” Ryan says. He finishes taking his pants off, nice and slow, pulling them down his thighs and cupping his erection through his boxer-briefs.

It occurs to Shane that Sara’s not even watching Ryan now. She’s got her head down and to the side, so she can’t see behind her. Whatever Ryan’s doing now is not for her benefit. He doesn’t know what to make of that.

“It was your birthday party last year, actually,” Sara says, a detail Shane remembers only as she says it. “We all went to the tiki bar, and then to that divey place? You beat him at pool twice and he griped about it all the way home.”

Shane’s not sure what she’s suggesting, but Ryan laughs knowingly.

“Oh, did I wind him up good for you? You’re welcome. Hey, scoot up, okay?”

Sara moves up the bed, so her head’s closer to the pillows. Ryan takes the opportunity to peel his underwear down his legs and off, and it distracts Shane momentarily from his train of thought.

Shane’s got eyeballs. He can admit when a guy looks good, and Ryan—he looks good. Muscular, but not grossly so. He looks great next to Sara, big but not dwarfing her, not looming awkwardly the way Shane feels like he sometimes does. And yeah, his dick is…it’s nice. It’s respectable. Not as big as Shane’s, and in his hand it’s girthy and brutally hard, angled up like he’s built for showing girls a good time.

Shane realizes that he’s dying, absolutely _dying_, to see Sara sink down on it, to see her come again around it.

He must make some kind of involuntary noise, because Ryan looks over at him, suddenly pink-faced. He juts his chin at Shane, just the subtlest motion. It makes Shane wonder what it must be like to be caught in the middle of them, him and Sara, managing two sets of needs and expectations. Shane hadn’t even realized he’d been asking Ryan to do that, not really; hadn’t realized until exactly this moment what Ryan had been asking when he’d asked Shane if he was _part of it_.

Shane’s starting to think he is, indeed, part of it. What’s more, he’s pretty sure Ryan and Sara both knew it already.

Even though his heart is rioting in his chest, Shane looks back. He lets his hand drift to the crotch of his pants and rest there, shifting into the pressure with a sigh. He makes sure Ryan sees him do it, as clear a sign for _proceed_ as he can give.

“I think the big guy’s earned his record, but we can do some damage,” Ryan says, and he nods.

He gets on the bed, lines up behind Sara, and pushes into her without another word about it. Shane was expecting more lead-up, somehow, more _drama_. His mouth goes bone-dry.

Sara groans as he bottoms out, her back bowing with surprise, shifting from knee to knee to accommodate him. He gives her a minute, but only just, and then he’s reaching up to gather her hair in his left hand, holding it like a low ponytail right at the nape of her neck.

“You hold it like this, close to the root,” he says to Shane, conversationally, like he isn’t balls-deep in Shane’s girlfriend. “Never pull the ends, never jerk her neck around.”

“Thanks for the pro tip,” Shane says, because what else can you say? “I thought you weren’t gonna teach me how to dance.”

Ryan shrugs. He pulls out, almost all the way, and slams home again. With his left hand he purposefully _tugs_, bringing Sara’s head back, her curls wrapped around his knuckles. She lets out a wordless whine, pushing back onto him, all her body open for him.

“You’re just sitting there like such a good student,” he says. “Eager. Got your pen and paper out. Your little moleskine.”

“Are you going to do what you came here to do, or are you just going to talk to me about it?” Shane asks.

Ryan must put a little extra behind his thrust at that, because Sara keens, recapturing his attention.

“This how princess wants it?” Ryan asks her. “You wanna feel every inch? Come on, tell me.” 

“Good,” she whimpers, “it’s—god—it’s good, Ryan, you know it is.”

It must not be enough for him, though, must not be quite what he’s looking for, because he presses her down into the bed with two firm hands on her lower back so she’s lying prone, her legs shut tight. He straddles her hips and pushes in—has to _really_ push, she’s so tight like that—to sheath himself fully in one go.

“Oh my god,” she says, her voice high, “Oh my god, that’s so—”

What it is, she can’t say, because she gets her mouth around the pillow, muffling her cries.

“Wish you could see this,” Ryan says, appreciative, and it takes a moment for Shane to realize Ryan’s talking to him again. Ryan strokes his hands down from where they were braced on Sara’s lower back to spread her ass apart, enjoying the view. “But then you must see it all the time, huh? That tight little pussy stretched around your cock. You’re a lucky man.”

It’s actually not a position they do a lot—Shane’s big, and he feels like he’s hurting her when he gets that deep. Even when her noises are reassuring, it worries him that he can’t see her face.

“Or maybe you’re more of a missionary with the lights out kind of guy,” Ryan continues. When Shane doesn’t immediately snap back some rejoinder he grins, bright white and toothy, a shark smelling blood in the water.

“What can I say, I’m an old romantic,” Shane says.

Ryan reaches for Sara’s hair again, tugging her head up, off the pillow. “C’mon, stop that, Sar. I want to hear you. If I didn’t want to hear you, I’d have told Shane to find another use for that mouth.”

She moans at that, and Shane wonders again if she—if _she’d_ want that, if that’s something she’s thought about but didn’t feel she could bring up, both of them together. Ryan does seem to be much less opposed to the general concept of sharing than he would have assumed.

He wonders, also, about that _told_. Shane’s never experienced it before, but it feels a little like he’s being topped from across the room, or at the very least felt out for it.

Sara had been right on the money about Ryan. Shane can feel him doing it: keeping a close eye on them both, trying to figure out what they both need from moment to moment and recalibrating accordingly. It must be hard work.

“So what is it, sweetheart? Does he like to whisper sweet nothings in your ear while he fucks you nice and slow? I bet he cries big juicy tears about how much he loves you when you come together.”

“Ye—yes,” Sara says. “And he likes, um. He likes it when I ride him.”

Ryan laughs at that. He gives her ass another joyful little smack at this new piece of information. “Lazy fucker. I should have known.”

She shakes her head. “Not about lazy. He likes it when I’m—oh, fuck, _fucking_—uh, he likes it when I’m in control, so he knows it’s not too much.”

Shane doesn’t know how she’s handling it, carrying on a conversation like this, Ryan so deep inside her, covering her relentlessly. Manhandling her the way he knows she’s been craving. If it were him, he thinks he’d be long gone.

As soon as he thinks it, he tries to _un-think_ it, but it’s too late. That horse has already bolted.

“She wants to feel you, dude,” Ryan says to him, shaking Shane from his thoughts. He’s trying to put a sneer in it, but he sounds truly baffled. “She wants to feel you in her _throat_. What’re you doing?”

“She feels me plenty,” Shane says easily. He doesn’t feel defensive, exactly—he knows this is part of the game, knows Ryan doesn’t mean it, not really.

To show that there are no hard feelings, except the obvious one, Shane slides his hand into his pants to touch himself properly.

Ryan groans then himself, stilling his hips with obvious effort. He dips down to kiss Sara’s back, from her shoulder down to the flare of her waist. “I could come right now, this pussy’s so good,” he tells her, his voice thick. “Could nut in you so deep he wouldn’t be able to lick it out of you, not if he tried for days. But that wouldn’t be fair to you, would it, when you’ve been so patient.”

He bends over her completely then, using his chest to press her down into the mattress, talking right in her ear too quietly for Shane to hear. It’s a private moment for them, well-deserved, and Shane passes the time watching his girlfriend writhe under another man and thinking good and hard about what Ryan just said.

Would he do that? He thinks he would. The way his mouth is watering would seem to suggest so, anyway.

He’s still not quite comfortable with how much he likes it, the filth Ryan’s spewing, the way the words make new possibilities light up in Shane’s mind. He’s always wanted to pretend he was above that stuff, a different sort of dude (_better_, less rude, less gross), but it’s starting to seem like maybe he was just waiting for a formal invitation to the party.

Well, he’s here now.

Ryan eases Sara onto her side, facing Shane, and lines up behind her. He catches Shane’s eye over Sara’s shoulder and holds the eye contact while he slides into her again, his right arm braced over her breasts.

For the first time Shane can get a good look at it, a proper look: Ryan’s cock shiny with Sara’s wetness, splitting her open. She looks so damn beautiful; the tense line of her stomach, the sweat glistening on her collarbones, the light smudge marks under her eyes from makeup run clean off.

He wonders if it would be shameful if he came before Ryan, alone in the corner with his hand down his pants. He’s not sure he cares if it is. He’s even not entirely sure he doesn’t _like_ that it is.

Ryan reaches down to rub Sara’s clit idly, to spread her wide with two fingers to give Shane the best possible view of how well she’s taking him, how wet she is. She’s so swollen and pink, pink almost to red, matching the red flush down her chest. She looks like someone turned the color contrast up on her whole body.

“Why don’t you show me how you take care of him, huh,” Ryan says to Sara, pinching her clit lightly, rolling it between two fingers to make her hips snap. “Let’s see you work for it.”

Ryan goes still then, letting Sara arch back against him, making her fuck back on him for the friction she needs. It’s not an easy angle, not a natural position for that kind of thing, but Shane watches her hips and stomach muscles work to do her very best.

“There’s my girl,” Ryan mutters. “Do you want the thing we talked about?”

“Yes please,” she says, and her voice is broken, desperate, Shane’s not sure he’s ever heard it like that, not sure he even knew it could. “Please, please, Ryan, come on.”

His hand leaves her clit to trail up her body, stopping to pinch each nipple along the way. “Tap my arm,” he tells her, and she nods frantically even as she grinds back into him.

Then his hand comes up to her neck to wrap neatly around her throat. And _squeeze_.

Shane hears the blood rushing in his ears again, as he looks at Ryan’s hand against her skin, pale turning to red where he’s got a hold of her.

For a minute Shane’s frozen, not sure if he can take it, not sure if he can watch this. Not sure if he’ll get up from the chair and intervene, even though it’s what she asked for, what they planned. He’s a still man, usually, a _placid_ man, but he wants to be pacing.

Then Sara whimpers, she works herself on Ryan’s dick like she’ll die if she can’t have it, her hand moving between her own legs now that Ryan can’t do it for her.

He releases her and she gasps, her eyes streaming, but she’s smiling—Shane makes himself memorize that shaky smile, reassuring himself with it. Ryan’s whispering in her ear again, and she’s nodding when his hand tightens around her neck once more.

“Come on, Sar, make yourself come,” he tells her, louder, for Shane’s benefit too. “I want to feel that sweet little hole coming around my cock. You gonna give me what I want?”

She whimpers, frantic, wanting to do as he says. Shane’s not sure he _wants_ to like it, but he does. God help him, he really fucking does, he loves it all. He loves Ryan’s foul mouth and his hands all over her. He loves how much Sara loves it, how she’s pushing back on Ryan again and again in mounting desperation even though she must be exhausted, even though her rhythm is falling to pieces.

“Jesus, man, help her out,” he murmurs, almost as desperate for her as she is for herself. Ryan looks at him around the emphatic tendrils of Sara’s hair, dark-eyed and curious.

Whatever Ryan sees there, it makes him obedient for a change. He snaps his hips up to meet her, once, twice, three times, and then she’s coming spectacularly with her entire body, muscles straining, her toes coming to sharp points against his calves. If Shane didn’t know better, he’d think she was fighting for air, but Ryan knows what he’s doing.

Shane doesn’t even realize how close he is himself until he watches her come, writhing on Ryan’s dick like there’s no such thing as deep enough, her face red and her curls wild and his hand right there around her neck.

“Jesus,” he says, “_Jesus_,” and then he’s coming too, in his pants like a teenager. It takes him by surprise, the total lack of self-control. There’s just no holding out against it, against the trembling of Sara’s thighs and the flex of Ryan’s bicep and the extraordinary _freedom_ of letting himself enjoy it.

When he blinks himself back to aware after a moment, he’s relieved to see Ryan petting Sara’s neck gently now, soothing the skin there. She’s breathing in great gulping sobs, listening as he talks low and reassuring to her, intimacies that aren’t for Shane to know.

For the first time tonight, watching Ryan kiss softly around the shell of her ear, Shane’s a little jealous. He’s jealous that Ryan could do this thing for her that he could not. He’s jealous that they will share this together, now: this intense moment when her breath was in Ryan’s hands and Shane was sitting in the corner, afraid of it, in awe of it.

Only a _little_ jealous, though.

“Come on, Ryan,” she begs, almost too quiet for Shane to hear.

“Yeah,” he says, gritted through his teeth, his thrusts going erratic. “God, I can’t—”

Shane’s glad he’s clear-headed now, at least. He’d hate to miss this.

Ryan’s run this whole thing like clockwork, so far. Shane’s pretty sure he and Sara worked through it down to the minute, far more than Shane himself was a part of. He’s even pretty sure Ryan brought some lines in his pocket, all of it just a little too slick to have been unrehearsed. 

Nothing wrong with that, of course. It was still scorchingly hot. It’s just that Shane’s been looking forward to this moment when the control and the self-discipline and the performance drop away, leaving only the real Ryan. Or if not the real one—_his_ Ryan, which is a slightly different version than Sara’s.

Ryan grunts when he starts to come, a loud rip of a sound that would be fucking hilarious in porn but is somehow riveting here. Instead of coming deep like he threatened, he sticks to shallow thrusts, pulling out before he’s done to finish stroking himself off on Sara’s pussy and partway up her stomach.

His face, though. Shane can’t look away from his face, his slack mouth pressed to Sara’s shoulder, his eyes fluttering with the relief of it. He must be so _tired_, Shane thinks. Mentally as well as physically.

Sara giggles at the feeling, ducking her smile into her arm, on the pillow.

“_Fuck_,” Ryan says with feeling as one last aftershock chases up him. Shane rather agrees.

Ryan slips himself back inside Sara with a sigh. His hips move listlessly, with no particular aim, and he sighs like he knows no greater satisfaction than this. Finally he looks back over to Shane.

“I’d offer you my sloppy seconds, but it looks like you couldn’t hold out,” Ryan says. There’s no meanness in it, just a tease.

“And no one on earth could blame me,” Shane says, emphatic, unembarrassed. “You two. My god.”

“Technically you’re _his_ sloppy seconds,” Sara points out sleepily. She reaches down to dab at the come on her stomach.

“Your girl’s a mess,” Ryan says to Shane. There’s no trace of the braggadocio from earlier. He’s not _telling_, but he might be—asking? Offering? Shane needs a minute to think about it. His brain’s still foggy.

“I can’t help but notice that three minutes ago she was your girl, but now that you’ve done god knows what to the interior she’s my problem again.”

Sara giggles softly. “I’m my own problem, you dick-measuring troglodytes.”

“Uh, I bow out of that particular competition,” Ryan says. He reaches down to put his hand over Sara’s, fingertips wet with his own come. “Seriously, though.”

“You saying I should make myself useful?”

Ryan shrugs, ducking his face into Sara’s hair. “You said it, not me.”

Shane stands up, stretching out his limbs and cracking his neck. He makes eye contact with Sara, and she cocks her head at him, checking in. They didn’t really talk about this, but he’s been thinking about it ever since Ryan ran his mouth about it earlier.

He winks at her so she knows it’s all good, and then he takes his sweet time ambling over to the bed.

He expects Ryan to pull out, to give him a little room to work so he can put Sara how he wants her. But Ryan doesn’t. He just gives a nod of his chin, _go on, then_, and Shane understands this is another test—one he’s free to step away from, no hard feelings.

He starts with the stray droplets of come on her lower belly, cleaning them up with his tongue, working his way down. He spends a little time on her clit just for the hell of it, and because Ryan’s panting _ah, ow!_ when Sara clenches around him is too good to pass up.

Her hand finds Shane’s hair and strokes through it. He feels the love and affection radiating through her fingertips, egging him on.

Shane drags his tongue down through her folds, down to the base of Ryan’s dick. He swirls around carefully there, ostensibly cleaning up, but mostly just enjoying the tense lines of Ryan’s body as he does it. Then he eases Ryan out of her, taking Ryan’s softening cock into his mouth and gently sucking him clean, letting his tongue roll between the foreskin and the head and relishing Ryan’s grunt of surprise.

He suckles lightly at the tip for good measure, and he’s rewarded when his tongue finds one little bead of come to lick out.

“Shane,” Ryan gasps, but it quickly devolves into a whine. It’s probably too much; he’s probably oversensitive. Well, that’s what he gets.

“You took about five years off my life today,” Shane informs him.

“Oh, you liked it,” Ryan starts, but Shane doesn’t let him finish. He takes Ryan in his mouth again, smiling when he feels the pitiful twitch of Ryan’s cock trying to get hard again much too soon. Ryan’s shaking now, he’s trembling like a leaf under Shane’s hands and under his mouth, and there’s _another_ new thing Shane likes a little too much.

Once Ryan’s started making noises like he wants to die, Shane turns his attention to Sara. He licks her out with long, methodical sweeps, letting Ryan’s come pool on his tongue. It’s still warm from Sara’s body, and yeah, it’s not exactly a delicacy, but he loves the feeling of Ryan’s and Sara’s eyes on him. It feels like his just desserts after sitting and watching for so long.

“What the fuuuck,” Ryan breathes, but Shane ignores him. Instead he turns his attention back to Sara’s clit, intent on giving her a wickedly fast third orgasm.

Just to remind them both who was here first.

*

“Somewhere along the line someone did a real number on you, huh?” Ryan asks him later.

They should be having the conversation about sleeping arrangements—_do you wanna stay over? Bed or couch?_—but they all seem to have come to a mutual understanding about putting it off as long as possible.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I’m referring to the heat you’re packing,” Ryan says, making Sara giggle quietly into Shane’s shoulder. “It’s not actually a weapon, you know. You can use it for good and not evil.”

“You haven’t even _seen_ what I’m packing.”

Ryan gives him a deeply skeptical look. “We’ve shared how many hotel rooms over the years? And you own _how_ many too-tight pairs of chinos?”

“Worst-kept secret on the ghost-hunting internet,” Sara agrees. “And now, I suppose, the history puppeteering internet.”

Well, that one’s going to fester, no doubt about it. Shane eyes his closet, feeling decidedly betrayed by the contents therein.

“You’re afraid you’ll hurt her, even though as far as I can tell she’s basically Elasti-girl,” Ryan presses. “Which means somewhere along the way you hurt someone, and it made you cautious. Or else somebody made you feel bad about it.”

“It’s not a big deal,” Shane says, embarrassed. “It’s just that when I was getting started, I didn’t know enough.”

“Yeah, but you know enough now. So how come you treat her like glass?”

“Ryan—” Sara starts, but she trails off. It occurs to Shane that it’s possible she’d quite like the answer to that too.

Shane shrugs. “Habit, I guess. And a heady cocktail of shame and fear. You accidentally make a couple people cry, you get a complex about it.”

Sara makes a sympathetic noise.

“Maybe,” Ryan says, and then he clears his throat. There’s a blush starting down his neck that makes Shane go up on his elbows. “Maybe you just need to find someone you’re less protective of. To, like, get you out of that mindset. Someone you’re not so scared you’ll hurt.”

For a few heady seconds they all sit with it. It’s a delicate thing, Shane thinks, this silence. He wouldn’t want to—

Sara barrels right in, bless her, clapping her hands giddily. “Ryan, it sounds an awful lot like despite all your protestations you’ve moved seamlessly into trying to teach my boyfriend how to dance with _you_.”

“Shut up,” he says, but he doesn’t deny it.

And that’s surprising, or it would have been surprising two hours ago. Now that Shane’s seen Ryan’s eyes on him across the room, heavy with pleasure and sparking with interest—now that he’s felt Ryan’s body tense under his mouth, frozen in shock and _wanting_—he is less surprised.

There may, however, be a hitch.

Shane clears his throat. “Unfortunately there’s no one in this room I am less protective of or afraid to hurt. So.”

He lets that one sizzle for a moment.

*

Ryan just looks at him, his head cocked.

“Aw, buddy,” he says, a little grin on his face. “I’m touched.”

“You sure were,” Sara adds, not particularly helpfully. She really was being very sweet and accommodating an hour ago, Shane thinks. “I don’t know, Shane. You didn’t seem to mind putting him through the wringer about an hour ago.”

“That was different,” Shane says, although he’s not sure how it’s different, exactly.

Ryan’s still looking at him, but the smug smile’s fading fast. Shane’s not used to Ryan looking at him so sincerely, like he’s trying to figure him out. It makes him want to turn away, or to crack a joke that will let him wiggle out of this conversation, but because Sara’s hand is resting on his wrist he doesn’t.

“I bet you’d let loose if I talked you through it,” Ryan says. “If I told you to.”

He doesn’t say _if I made you, _but for some reason Shane’s weirdo brain lights up with it.

And that’s interesting.

“Ryan, I would pay one thousand American dollars to watch you top this man from the bottom until he rises from the ashes, cured of his big dick shame,” Sara says. “Like a phoenix, but with an enormous—"

“Let the man think, Sar,” Ryan chides her.

“I was going to say _sense of self-worth_.”

Shane lets the sound of their playful chatter wash over him as he considers the offer.

For a long time, Shane had thought Ryan was watching Sara, the better to give her what she needed. Somewhere around two hours ago, he’d thought Ryan was watching him too, trying to make sure everyone came away happy. Now he understands Ryan was in fact watching him with deeper intent, assessing his faulty wiring and his fears and neuroses with the intent of rewiring him completely, if Shane will only let him try.

Having seen how Ryan operates—how he molds himself to perfectly fit the space available, like he slotted himself in between Shane and Sara tonight—Shane thinks there might be something to it.

“Maybe,” he says. “I’ll…yeah. Maybe.”

Ryan grins at him.

“Come over here and kiss me,” he demands, and Shane already knows he will go.

*


End file.
